


Star Jars

by boazpriestly



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-29
Updated: 2013-11-29
Packaged: 2018-01-02 22:33:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1062438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/boazpriestly/pseuds/boazpriestly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When you were six and he was seven, Cas said, “I want the view from my window to be the stars, all the time. Morning and night."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star Jars

When you were eight you begged your mother for an entire week to take you to the craft store so you could get glow-in-the-dark paint. You had twenty bucks worth of birthday money from Uncle Bobby and the perfect idea as to what you were gonna make Cas for his birthday. When your mom finally walked you into the store she asked if you needed help looking for what you needed.

 

You told her no. You said, “I'm a big kid, Mom, I think I can find some paint tubes.” Truth was, you didn't know the first this about paint past those dumb little watercolor trays that Ms. Jodi made you use during art projects.

 

But mom smiled and said, “Okay, Dean. Just me by the flowers when you get what you need.” Then she kissed your head and walked away.

 

Turned out, the craft store wasn't as big as you thought it would be and you found the glow-in-the-dark paints two seconds after your mom turned around. You picked green, purple, and blue, then bought a pack of peanut M&Ms to go with it. When you were walking back to the car Mom asked, “What are you actually making with that?”

 

You looked at your bag and smiled, “S'mthing for Cas. Do we have any empty jelly jars?”

 

“I might have a few. You sure you don't need any help with this?”

 

You slid into the backseat, buckling your seatbelt as you shook your head. “Nuh-uh. It's a suhprise.”

 

Mom looked over her shoulder at you, her eyes brimmed with tears. She smiled and said, “Cas is lucky to have a friend like you.”

 

You nodded and tore open the bag of M&Ms, popping a few into your mouth. She had is wrong, you were the lucky one, not Cas.

 

 

It took you three whole days to make your project. You started the minute mom parked the car in the driveway, letting you jump out and run up to your room. You closed the door behind you and grabbed and old cowboy frisbee from the floor. You opened all three bottles of paint and squeezed out the fat blobs in a triangle pattern onto the disc. Then you turned off the lights and waited. It was dark. The paint didn't glow.

 

You turned the lights back on and sat in the middle of the floor. Your plan was ruined.

 

But then you remembered what Andy Gallagher told you about the glow-in-the-dark stars that his dad put up on his bedroom ceiling. “You gotta keep the curtains open it's sunny, you know. To give 'em light an' all, r'else they won't glow. You can keep the light on too, but my dad dunn't like when I leave the lamps on when I'm not in the room. Says is wastes his money or something. I dunno.” You played baseball with Andy after that.

 

But now you just smiled and grabbed the frisbee from the floor. You practically made it to your nightstand in one leap, from where you stood, excitement bursting in your chest like an entire packet of pop rocks mixed with soda (it won't kill you, you learned. You had to prove it to Sam after Gordon kept threatening to murder him with it. And when Sam figured out it was a lie, he punched Gordon in the nose. It was awesome.).

You turned on your Star Trek lamp and shoved the paint beneath the light. You didn't know how long it would take for the paint to get strong enough to glow the way you needed it to, but your stomach was growling. You could wait as long as it took.

 

You left the paint next to the lamp and ran downstairs to see if Mom would make you a sandwich. But you turned off the overhead lights before you left the room, hoping it would help a little more.

 

It took two hours for the paint to glow the way you wanted. And you laughed when you turned off all the lights the last time and it shone through the room, lighting up your face.

 

“Perfect!” you yelled. Then you ran back downstairs to get the jars you needed from mom and an old toothbrush some paintbrushes from the junk drawer in the kitchen. When you returned to your room Sam was sitting next to the paint, still in the dark.

 

“Was'it?” he asked, fingers nearly touching the paint.

 

You set down the jars and your tools and said, “A secret.”

 

“Like what daddy got mommy for Cwissmas?”

 

“Yep, just like that. Wanna help?”

 

Sam grinned and his teeth glowed purple.

 

 

When the two of you finally finished the jars, with you doing almost everything and Sam only being good for handing you the paintbrushes and toothbrush or just sleeping on the floor next to you, your clothes were covered in paint. Luckily, you had remembered to wear clothes that you didn't really care about: an old pair of torn jeans and a too small Jefferson Airplane t-shirt. But you were done with the project, and just in time for Cas' birthday party.

 

“Mom!” you yelled, yanking open the bedroom door and stepping into the hallway. “Mom, c'mere! Come look!” She ran up the stairs to you, a worried look on her face that eased when she saw you smiling and hopping up and down. “I finished, 'em,” you said. “Come look.”

 

She did, following you into the dark you and letting you close the door. Sam sat cross-legged on the bed and said, “Dere pwetty, huh?”

 

“They're beautiful,” she said.

 

“You think Cas'll like 'em?”

 

She hugged you tight and whispered, “He'd be crazy not to.”

 

 

You wrapped the jars in a ton of newspaper once they were dry, after you set them under the lamp for hours before Cas' party started. Then you lined them up together in a box Uncle Bobby gave you once Mom told him what you made. You taped the box closed and let mom help you cover it with wrapping paper, cause she's better at that then you. Then you wrote a card, taped it to the present and ran upstairs to get dressed.

 

Sam wore his favorite Thundercats t-shirt with a clip on tie, cause he thought you always had to get dressed up for parties no matter what kind they were, and you threw on your nicest pair of jeans and a Beatles shirt that Cas bought for you on your last birthday. Your stomach rumbled almost painfully, forcing you to take a few deep breathes.

 

“You look nice,” Sam said from behind you.

 

“Yeah?”

 

He nodded. “Hims gonna like 'em.”

 

You knew Sam meant the jars, so you smiled. “C'mon,” you said, wrapping your arm around Sam's shoulder. “the party is starting soon.”

 

Sam ran down ahead of you and Mom kissed your forehead as you grabbed Cas' present from the counter.

 

“I'll meet you there,” she said.

 

“Kay,” you said, trying to swallow down all the nervousness threatening to make you throw up.

 

“Calm down, sweetie. He's gonna love it.”

 

“Dean, I c'n heaw music!”

 

You turned away from Mom and walked out the door behind Sammy.

 

 

The things you always remembered about Cas were this: He hated chocolate, yellow was his favorite color, and if he could live anywhere, it'd be on a rocketship stopped halfway between the Moon and Mars and positioned just right so he could still see the small blue pebble that Earth would be. He told you that once, when you were six and he was seven. He said, “I want the view from my window to be the stars, all the time. Morning and night.”

 

“But what about in the afternoon?” you'd asked.

 

“Then too. But I expect a few meteors to show up by them so it's not all the same all the time, you know?”

 

You nodded your head, but you didn't really know. Cas dreamed of weird things all the time, you just learned to go with it and not ask too many questions.

 

But now you sat on a bench in his backyard watching as the neighborhood kids played on The Fort, a huge half tree house too close to the ground to be called a full tree house. Your stomach hurt too much for you to play with them. You were scared, you realized. Afraid that Cas would think you gift was stupid, or worse that he wouldn't even remember what the gift was in relation too. You wanted to throw up.

 

But then Cas' Mom called everyone over to sing happy birthday and watch Cas open the presents before cutting the cake. There were nearly a hundred present piled on the table to Cas' right. The Milton-Novaks were popular in your town. Cas' dad was the local doctor, and had probably delivered more than half of the kids that were at the party, Sam included. And his mom was the school Principal. You only had one school in town, a massive warehouse type building that went from Kindergarten all the way to twelfth grade, and Mrs. Milton-Novak oversaw it all. But despite being a hard-ass at school she was the nicest person you had ever met, besides your own mom.

 

She smiled beautifully as she called out to you. “C'mon over, Dean,” she said. “Cas saved you a spot right next to him.” Sure enough there was an empty chair to Cas' left, the same one you've always sat in for every one of Cas' birthdays since you were able to climb onto one by yourself.

 

You stood from the bench and walked over to the front of the crowd talking your assigned seat and Cas' hand too. He squeezed your hand and said, “You look like you're gonna be sick. You okay?”

 

“'M fine,” you said. “just open mine last okay?”

 

“Kay,” he agreed and let go of your hand. You took note that is was almost dark.

 

 

It took forever to get to your present. Your mom and Cas' mom kept making Cas stop so they could take pictures of him holding every gift. And by the fifty-sixth present, you were tearing open most of them with Cas just to make things go by faster.

 

With every gift unwrapped, your heart pounded harder and faster in your chest. More than once Cas asked you if you were okay and you nodded every time. You were fine because every gift was the same and nothing like yours. Cars and books and clothes and even a Star Wars bed set (which Sam wanted to keep and you thought was stupid because you still hadn't been able to get Cas to watch the movies with you). And when all of them were opened, yours the only one still closed, you heard you mom gasp at the same time you did. She whispered something to Cas' mom who grinned brightly.

 

It was dark now, twilight your dad called it.

 

Cas pulled off the card first and read it out loud.

 

“Since you won't ever be able to touch the stars, them being big ol' balls of burning gas and all (I learned that from Nova), I thought I'd bring the stars to you. Happy Birthday, Cas. Dean.”

 

Cas scrunched his eyebrows together and gave you a look. Your mom laughed. “Just open it,” you said. “Please.”

 

So he did. He tore through the wrapping paper and ripped off the tape with a loud pop. He dug into the box and took out the first jar with the word morning written on the paper. Cas still looked confused but threw the newspaper to the ground just as quickly as he discarded the wrapping paper. Everyone, especially Cas, sucked in a breath, and you were glad you chose to keep the jars under the lamp before you came here.

 

It glowed brighter than you imagined it would, illuminating the faces of everyone at the party. Cas set it down in the box and unwrapped the other two, which glowed just as brightly.

 

“Dean?” Cas said.

 

“I call 'em star jars. The green one is the morning, 'cause they didn't have yellow at the store. The blue one is the afternoon and the purple one is night.” You looked at your shoes as you explained, your face hot as you blushed like crazy. “You said you --”

 

“Wanted to see the stars all the time. Morning and night. I remember.”

 

“And meteors in the afternoon,” you added, grabbing a pair of sticks with rocks tied to them from the box and setting them on top of the blue jar so the rocks dangled inside.

 

Cas put his hand over yours before you could pull it back from the jar. Then he kissed your cheek and whispered, “Thank you, Dean. This is the best present ever.”

 

You giggled, stupidly, until you hiccuped and the entire party laughed.

 

 

You hadn't believed Cas then when he had told you later, as you cleaned up wrapping paper together in the backyard, that he'd keep the jars forever. You figured it was just a saying, like when grown-ups told you that you could be whatever you wanted to be except they always forgot to add that you needed to be rich to do even a quarter of the jobs you really wanted.

 

But you believed him now. On hundred percent.

 

Because you and Cas' son and Sam's twin girls walked down the aisle in the dark, each holding a glowing jar to lead their way to you. Your son was last with the purple because he was the youngest.

 

Sam stood next to you and patted your arm, trying his best to calm you down. But you waited too long for this, and nothing was going to make it easier. But the minute Cas stood at the back of the Church, his mother at his side (because Dr. Milton-Novak had died two years earlier) and a green light saber lighting up his face, you felt yourself relax and and laugh.

 

It took you nearly sixteen years to get Cas to watch Star Wars, but when he did he insisted that light sabers had to be part of your wedding whenever you guys decided to have one. You didn't argue, but as long as you got a blue one. Cas agreed and picked green for his.

 

“You ready?” Sam whispered in your ear.

 

“As I'll ever be,” you said.

 

The kids set the jars on a table to your left and sat down in the front aisle. Then the Imperial March started, Cas began to walk, and you looked at your Mom.

 

She wiped a tear away from her eyes, as she leaned against your dad, and mouthed, “I told you he'd love them.”  


End file.
